In the past few weeks, I’ve been getting calls from television stations around the country to do Laowai-Style related things—some of which I am doing and will post about soon! I had my first chance to visit with the people who make television here in China this afternoon. I went to visit a company called Enlight Media, which is one of the bigger media companies in China, and produces many of the shows that come out on Chinese TV. They also produce a lot of the content that is shown on subway cars here in China, so anyone used to riding the Beijing subway might have seen their work.
Today I was meeting with people from Anhui TV. Anhui is a province in central China, and they are hiring Enlight media to prepare a show for their local broadcast station. The show, “Can’t Stop Me Now,” is a talent show that features skilled performers who can sing, dance, or do magic, but they seemed to be willing to make an exception for me, who can do none of the above. They wanted to fly me to Hefei in Anhui for a day and promised to cover all my costs—not a bad deal, but as I am super busy with classes, I said we ought to discuss the show before I agreed to hop on a plane.
I entered Enlight’s Beijing offices, tucked behind a parking lot close enough to the Yonghegong Lama Temple that their air still smelled smoky with incense. All around me were rows and rows of Chinese people—almost entirely women—working at cluttered counters and making television happen. It was simultaneously glamorous and low-key, and the unusual architecture of the building separated it from many of the gridded offices I’d seen at other places in China.
It was worth trekking across town on a Thursday to meet with the people at the station, even if only to get valuable language practice on explaining why I’m here in China, the importance of learning Xiangsheng, and explaining what I was trying to do with Laowai Style.
Still, in my meeting with Ms. Chen, I felt that there were some points of contention that reminded me that while television here is more than willing to have me work with them, they might not be as willing to work with me towards my goals—namely, furthering connections between China and the U.S. through humor.
“I loved the lyrics to Laowai Style!” Ms. Chen told me. “If we were to broadcast it, though, would we be able to make some small changes?”
“What kind of changes?” I asked. I wondered if the phrase “the party” or “Chinese characteristics” might pop up somewhere.
Actually, it turned out to be a much more mundane dumbing down of my project. “We were thinking, instead of Laowai Style, we could change it to ‘China Style’ or ‘Beijing Style.’”
I smiled, and tried to explain the entire relevance of the video centered on the fact it was about how foreigners were living in China. Taking the “laowai” out of “laowai style” reduced the whole piece to a giant blob of mimicry.
Rather than being confrontational—a tactic to avoid at all costs in China—we agreed to both consider changes, which meant that neither of us would be considering anything.
Moving onto another topic, it came up that I had made more funny videos back in the U.S. Ms. Chen was very interested and asked me to send some more. “Let me see your funniest one!”
I though about which video I ought to send. Firstly, almost all were in English. I asked if this was a problem. “No problem!” Ms. Chen replied. But of course it was. I’ve spent enough time struggling to understand Chinese comedy to know 90 percent of my jokes would die in linguistic and cultural transit.
Secondly, I couldn’t think of another video I did that would be halfway as funny to Chinese people, who don’t know what Parkour is or appreciate Otto Von Bismarck rapping about The Federation of the Rhyme. “I don’t know if I have others that would fit a Chinese sense of humor,” I said.
“No problem there either! Just send what you have.”
I nodded, but I knew there was no hope for anything productive down that road. I foresaw a wasted ten minutes composing an e-mail in my future.
In the end, I walked out of the building with a few name cards and a better idea of how China Central Television works with private media companies to produce content, which could one day be quite useful. But I still think there is a gap between what Chinese media thinks to put on their air left to their own devices and what I would do left to mine. Perhaps that’s an area I’ll look more into as the year goes on and I put together my own comedy team.在过去的几周里,我接到了全国各地的电视台的电话，让我跳一段老外风（Laowai style）的舞——-这正是我在做并且马上要发布的东西！这个下午我第一次获得了拜访中国电视人的机会。我去拜访了一家叫光线传媒的公司，它是业界的大公司之一，制作了很多中国的电视节目。他们也制作了很多中国地铁上的节目，所以如果你在北京坐过地铁，你一定看到过他们的作品。
今天我去见了几个安徽卫视的人。安徽是中国中部的一个省份，他们聘请光线传媒准备当地一个电台的节目“Can’s Stop Me Now”(阻止不了我)，那是一个是才华展示的节目，选手可以唱歌，舞蹈或者表演魔术，虽然我不会上述的任何一个，但他们似乎愿意为我破例。他们愿意报销我去安徽合肥的机票以及一天的全部花销 —– 这不是个坏主意，但是因为我的课业负担很重，所以我提出上节目前,我们需要讨论一下。
我进入光线传媒的北京办事处，这里在一个停车场后面，足够接近的雍和宫，空气里能闻到强烈的寺庙里熏香的味道。我周围是一排排的中国人—几乎全是女人—-在一个个隔间里制作电视。这种布局兼具魅力和低调，独特的建筑布局使得它和其他中国办公室的布局显得不一样。
在周四这一天跨过这个城市，去电台见人足够值得，尽管也许只是练练语言告诉别人为什么我来中国，为什么学相声那么重要，并且解释为啥我要跳那段老外风.
在我和陈女士的会面中，我依然觉得电视公司只是愿意和我合作，而并不是支持我的长远的计划—–计划主要是指进一步用幽默连接中美。
“我很喜欢老外风的歌词”陈女士告诉我”如果我们播放它,那么我们是否能做一些小的改动?”
“什么改动呢?”我问,我担心诸如”党”和”中国特色”的词汇会出现。
事实上,那只是一个更容易的改动.”我们在想,我们可以用中国风或者北京风替代老外风”
我笑了,并且尝试解释整个视频的核心，就是讲述外国人们是如何在中国生活的。如果把老外风里的老外两个字去掉,就把整个核心去掉了。
当我们把话题换到我在美国拍的那些搞笑视频的时候，陈女士非常感兴趣,并让我们发给她一些:”
让我看看那些最搞笑的作品!”
我开始想该发哪部片子,首先,因为它们都是英文的,我问她这是问题么。”当然没问题”,陈女士回复我。但是我当然明白这很难，首先，因为我自己在理解中文笑话的段子的时候就已经死了不少脑细胞了,所以我觉得我的英文笑话在翻译成中文之后，百分之九十的笑料都会在翻译中消失殆尽。
第二， 我也找不到一部我的录像能够呈现其一半的精彩给中国观众，因为他们不知道什么是跑酷，或者理解Otto Von Bismarck 唱韵联合会的饶舌段子。”我不知道我是否有适合中国的幽默感”我说。
“也没问题,只需要发给我你有的就行”。
我点了点头，但是我知道这条路行不通。我预见到了未来我花十分钟撰写一封无奈的邮件表示遗憾的场景。
最后，我走出这栋楼,拿着几张名片,以及一个更好的点子，点子关于中国中央电视台与私人媒体公司合作制作视频内容，也许有天会很有用。我觉得中国的媒体目前所关注的可能和我的理想还有所隔阂，也许几年之后我能发现我的用武之地，以及拥有我自己的喜剧团队。